PoliticsTrump Tells Pentagon Chief He Does Not Want War With Iran

21:40 16 may 2019

21:40 16 may 2019 Source:
nytimes.com

Trump doubts U.S. needs to send more troops to Middle East

President Donald Trump said on Thursday he did not think additional U.S. troops are needed in the Middle East to counter Iran, casting doubt on a Pentagon plan to bolster forces in the region. "I don't think we're going to need them. I really don't," Trump told reporters. "I would certainly send troops if we need them." If needed, "we'll be there in whatever number we need," he added. Trump, who has been focused on trying to reduce the number of U.S. troops deployed around the world, spoke shortly before he was to be briefed at the White House on a new deployment plan by acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has told his acting defense secretary, Patrick Shanahan, that he does not want to go to war with Iran, according to several administration officials, in a message to his hawkish aides that an intensifying American pressure campaign against the clerical-led government in Tehran must not escalate into open conflict.

Mr. Trump’s statement, during a Wednesday morning meeting in the Situation Room, came during a briefing on the rising tensions with Iran. American intelligence has indicated that Iran has placed missiles on small boats in the Persian Gulf, prompting fears that Tehran may strike at United States troops and assets or those of its allies.

Iran moving ballistic missiles by boat, US officials say

Intelligence showing that Iran is likely moving short-range ballistic missiles aboard boats in the Persian Gulf was one of the critical reasons the US decided to move an aircraft carrier strike group and B-52 bombers into the region, according to several US officials with direct knowledge of the situation. The concerns over the movement of the missiles was one of multiple threads of intelligence from various sources that led the US to believe Iran had a capability and intention to launch strikes against US targets. On Tuesday US Central Command spokesperson Capt.

No new information was presented to the president at the meeting that argued for further engagement with Iran, according to a person in the room. But Mr. Trump was firm in saying he did not want a military clash with the Iranians, several officials said.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump was asked during a visit by the Swiss President, Ueli Maurer, whether the United States was going to war with Iran.

“I hope not,” he replied.

The president has sought to tamp down reports that two of his most hawkish aides — the national security adviser, John R. Bolton, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — are spoiling for a fight with Iran and are running ahead of him in precipitating a military confrontation.

“There is no infighting whatsoever,” Mr. Trump said in a tweet on Wednesday evening. “Different opinions are expressed, and I make a decisive and simple decision — it’s a very simple process. All sides, views, and policies are covered.”

Trump approves additional deployment to Mideast to counter Iran

President Donald Trump has given his approval to Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan to deploy additional military resources to the Persian Gulf region to deter Iranian threats, according a senior US official. require(["medianetNativeAdOnArticle"], function (medianetNativeAdOnArticle)
{
medianetNativeAdOnArticle.

But Mr. Trump added he was confident Iran “will want to talk soon,” signaling an openness to diplomacy that officials said is not shared by Mr. Bolton or Mr. Pompeo.

The Fake News Washington Post, and even more Fake News New York Times, are writing stories that there is infighting with respect to my strong policy in the Middle East. There is no infighting whatsoever....

The president’s professed hopes for a dialogue with Iran seem unlikely to produce a breakthrough any time soon. In Tokyo, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran said there was “no possibility” of discussions with the administration to ease the tensions, Agence France-Presse reported.

The US military and its allies in the region can't get their story straight on the Iran threat

Hours after a general said the threat from Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria hadn't risen, US Central Command issued an unusual rebuke.

“The escalation by the United States is unacceptable,” Mr. Zarif told reporters, according to AFP.

Mr. Pompeo has outlined 12 steps that Iran must take to satisfy the United States — measures that some in the Pentagon view as unrealistic and could back Iranian leaders into a corner. He recently described American policy as being calculated to produce domestic political unrest in Iran.

Mr. Bolton, as a private citizen, long called for regime change in Tehran. He has resisted compromises that would open the door to negotiations with Tehran, has stocked the N.S.C. with Iran hard-liners and has masterminded recent policy changes to tighten the economic and political vise on the country’s leaders.

Mr. Trump is less frustrated with Mr. Bolton over his handling of Iran — he favors the tougher measures as a warning to Tehran — than over the evolving narrative that his national security adviser is leading the administration’s policy in the Middle East, according to three officials.

The president, they said, is well-versed and comfortable with the administration’s recent steps, which have included imposing increasingly onerous sanctions on Iran and designating the military wing of the government, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a foreign terrorist organization.

U.S. will stick to diplomacy on North Korea -acting Pentagon chief

Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said on Thursday that the United States would stick to diplomacy on North Korea even after Pyongyang fired what appeared to be two short-range missiles. "We're going to stick to our diplomacy and as you all know we haven't changed our operations or our posture and we'll continue to generate the readiness we need in case diplomacy fails," Shanahan told reporters outside the Pentagon. He declined to comment on what North Korea had fired on Thursday.

Still, the gravity of the Iranian threat has become the subject of a fierce debate among administration officials. Some officials have argued that it did not warrant a dramatic American response, like deploying thousands of troops to the Middle East, or the partial evacuation of the United States Embassy in Baghdad.

The Pentagon last week presented Mr. Trump with options to send up to 120,000 troops to the Middle East, if Iran attacked American forces or accelerated its work on nuclear weapons. The options were ordered by Mr. Bolton, who has kept an unusually tight grip on the policymaking process for a national security adviser.

Mr. Bolton, officials said, has quietly voiced frustration with the president, viewing him as unwilling to push for changes in a region that he has long seen as a quagmire. That, in turn, has led people in the White House to view Mr. Bolton with deepening skepticism, with some questioning whether his job is in trouble.

Mr. Trump also is impatient with another of Mr. Bolton’s major campaigns: the effort to oust President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. After the opposition’s failed attempt to peel away key Maduro allies and turn the Venezuelan military against him, Mr. Maduro appears harder to dislodge than ever.

President Donald Trump shocked Twitter on Thursday — no easy feat — when he tweeted out an edited clip of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stammering repeatedly. The video, which aired on the Fox Business Network show of Lou Dobbs, was a sequence of clips from a speech Pelosi gave, cut up and […]

The last time a president was threatened with impeachment, he made a point of not talking about it. This one cannot stop talking about it. Where Bill Clinton tried to appear above the mud fight, leaving it to aides and allies to wage the battle for him, Mr. Trump is determined to get down […]

President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that sparked the opening of the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A., effectively stripping the agency of its most critical power: choosing which secrets it […]

The U.S. House of Representatives approved legislation that relaxes the rules for retirement savers and corrects an unintended side-effect of the 2017 tax law that hit children of military members who died in combat with higher-than-expected tax bills. The bill, which passed Thursday with […]